That Loving Feeling
by Misty's Double
Summary: The seperated Ash and Misty get back together for the Hoenn League, but will the childhood crushes blossom? Rating given for later content.


Right, this is me, Misty's D, with a NEW piece. This is just the prologue (a long one at that), but I will be continuing this alongside Misty's Journey every now and then.  
The rating is staying as it is for now, it will be changing though as the fic goes on, probably at worst to PG-13. I hope you enjoy anyway!  
Disclaimer: I own none of the rights to Pokémon, so don't even bother.

That Loving Feeling  
By Misty's Double  
_Prologue_

She placed the silver hairbrush down onto the beech dressing table, and looked into the mirror mounted upon the wall in front of her. The blue eyes in the reflection stared back at their origin, the pure white of the eye suddenly glimmered in the light at the bottom with tears, before more tears gathered above the eyelid. She looked down for a moment, reached for a picture frame, and brought it in front of her. The picture- framed by a chrome border, had a few pieces of broken glass protecting it.

"I wish you knew just how much you hurt me!" The girl spat as she threw the frame down, causing broken shards of glass to erupt from the picture, glittering in the light.

The girl stood up suddenly, tears overflowing from their banks into small rivers, the force of gravity making them run down her red cheeks. She ran out of her room sobbing, her shiny ginger hair bouncing with each step.

The boy and girl stood together on a beach in a seemingly exotic place. The boy, looking about fourteen years old, had pure black hair, falling over his face, probably due to it being soaked with water. His large brown eyes had a cheeky glint to them as he grinned mischievously at the person taking the picture, his arm wrapped around the waist of a girl, pulling her into his bare, tanned torso.

The girl, only a few inches shorter than the boy, grinned also for the camera, a slight blush creeping across her cheekbones. Her ginger hair- up in a side ponytail, was falling out of the hair band, and framing her face. Her chunky fringe also fell limply across her forehead, shining in the sunlight, and dripping with water. The aquamarine bikini she wore accentuated her bright blue eyes.

The picture was a perfect, happy scene; the grins radiating happiness, but the happiness were barely felt in such a cold, depressive environment. The air of the spacious lilac room was one of sadness, anger, and maybe even longing, for the three things this girl wanted back in her life the most: the freedom to travel around the world; her Togepi, who she missed dearly; and of all her friends, mainly the boy pictured with her. Nobody could even imagine how much that boy was missed by the girl.

There was no hope of the girl getting back what she missed in the near future either. She had reached the age of 16 earlier that month, which meant to her triplet sisters that she could legally run the Pokémon Trainer's Gym independently, much to the dismay of the girl. Sure, she loved running a Pokémon Gym 12 months before that due to her sisters disappearing off on a round the world cruise, and she was called off her journey travelling around with her friends to baby sit the Gym. But she felt too young to have the Gym thrust upon her like that. She still had a life to live out before settling down with the Gym and it's responsibilities. This is how she lost her freedom, having to be holed up being a Gym Leader at such a young age.

Neither would she be getting her Togepi back. After the girl had managed to locate her friends in the island region of Hoenn earlier that year, she ended up handing over her baby egg Pokémon to complete a traditional legend in Hoenn. She instantly regretted handing over her most dear Pokémon with so little thought as to the consequences.

The most important factor to this girl's sadness was the inability to contact her closest friend. Due to the fact he was trying his luck in a Pokémon League Championship barely heard of in Kanto, the Hoenn League, the girl hadn't been able to track his whereabouts.

She could try and reach him by travelling to Hoenn against her sisters' wishes, she only knew of far western Hoenn, and couldn't possibly go trekking alone into unknown territory. She was too intelligent to try that.

The one last connection the two friends had left between them was her Pokémon. All the time the girl had been travelling, she had the water type Pokémon with her at all times. One Pokémon in particular that she trained with special care was a baby crocodile water type Pokémon. Professor Oak, Kanto's leading Pokémon researcher, who was responsible for looking after the boy's Pokémon, handed it over to her. Professor Oak had been given orders to send the Pokémon to the girl to train at the Water type Pokémon Gym.

That was whom the girl had gone running out of the room to see- her Pokémon. Although she had nobody human to turn to for comfort, due to her less than stable relationship with her siblings, her beloved water Pokémon fit the bill perfectly. She had trained with them for so long that the Pokémon knew nearly everything about the girl, and could comfort her as best a Pokémon could.

And the blue crocodile she had been training for her friend was a great source of happiness, due to his comical dances showing gratitude towards seeing his favourite trainers.

The girl stopped running at the doors to the Pokémon training pool, and took a deep breath through her nose to try and control her sobbing, before pushing the white windowed door open to walk into the tiled pool area, shutting the door quickly behind her causing the slam to reverberate throughout the large whitewashed room. She walked cautiously across the azure blue floor tiles to a storeroom to the other side of the circular pool central to the room. When she reached the room, she flipped the light switch on, flooding the dark windowless area with harsh, glaring artificial light, allowing the shelves full of many shiny Pokéballs to be seen along the left wall. Along the right wall leant many swimming floats, targets and diving rings specially bought for training the Pokémon to be better in the water. Also, upon the wall were many visual displays recording pool conditions such as the water temperature. One other display was for the skylight above the pool. The girl picked up the stylus from it's holder on the wall, and after pressing a few icons on the touch sensitive screen, the display beeped, before a mechanical whirring sound could be heard from the pool room, signalling the blind over the skylight was opening to let in natural sunlight.

The girl then turned around to face the shelves full of the Pokémon storage devices. She looked to the far left, and began scanning the balls for the one she was looking for. Tracing her finger along the edge of the shelf, she focused her eyes on each ball in turn.

"Totodile… Totodile…" She kept repeating, using her soft, gentle voice quietly as if not to disturb anything. Eventually she came across the ball she was looking for, and using the hand she was used to trace the shelf, she placed her fingers around the spherical device and lifted it out of it's concave holder. Letting her arm fall limply to her side, she turned on her heel and walked out of the door, shutting off the electric lights as she went.

She walked back into the main poolroom, and walked to the pool's edge tentatively with the Pokéball still in her hand. She stopped at the water, and she looked up to the large circular skylight above the pool, sighing at the continuous rhythmic patting of raindrops, the rainwater following the shape of the domed glass onto the roof. Looking past the distorted glass, the sky was a menacing grey, the low rain clouds moving at a fast rate over the building.

The girl looked back down, and studied the blue and white ball, the metallic outer layer slowly warming in her hand. On the deep aquamarine blue upper half of the sphere was an engraved fishing hook, the trademark of the specialised Lure Ball produced in Johto. Eventually, she pressed the white button protruding from the grey ring around the centre of the ball, and the ball immediately split open around the grey ring, and a mass of red light flew out of the ball, gathering in no particular shape on the tiles. As the ball snapped shut quickly, the light merged together, and rippled before very quickly moulding into a shape, before the red shape turned into a living thing. It's long blue head was facing down, and as it's large bright red eyes opened slowly, it's mouth opened wide in a yawn, revealing two long jaws full of short, sharp white teeth. The black-scaled band over the creature's eyes made it look strong and dangerous, yet looking at the size of it, and how young it looked, it was clear there would be little danger being around this creature.

Misty looked down at the Pokémon, who was looking around the room, familiarising himself to the area.

"Totodile, are you okay?" She said in her soft voice she used when speaking to the Pokémon. When she returned to look after the Gym she began reading a book titled "Understanding the Needs of Your Water Pokémon" written by the Elite Four Ice specialist Lorelei.

Although Misty held great knowledge as to understanding her Pokémon, there were a few mysteries she didn't reveal through experience, and mainly used the information to learn about her Psyduck, due to it's lack of water type powers.

One thing she had learnt was that with all Pokémon, the tone of voice the trainer uses can have an affect on the way they react with them- a harsh, disciplining voice strikes fear into the Pokémon, and it becomes too scared to communicate with that person fully, breaking most bonds between the two if used regularly, whereas a soft, clear voice relaxes the Pokémon, and most species respond to the kind tones with loyalty to the trainer.

The Totodile looked up at Misty; slightly startled before grinning, and nodding it's head, accompanied by a token "Toto!" to reiterate it's answer. Misty smiled down at the creature.

"Okay then, Mister. Today we'll practice our swimming to strengthen your legs, and… Totodile, stop it!" Misty shouted suddenly, as Totodile had waddled to the plastic box holding the floats and targets, and had helped himself to a green foam float, and began to chew the corner of it. Misty sighed, walked over quickly and took it off Totodile, who looked at her innocently.

"Don't give me that look Totodile, foam isn't good for you, so don't eat it! The floats are to fight, not eat!" Misty scowled, frustration evident in her voice. In reply, Totodile attempted running from Misty, but just ended up waddling to the water's edge, and jumped in off the walkway. As Totodile hit the surface, the gentle, glistening sheet of water was shattered like a pane of glass, with water splashing all over, ripples emitting from the point Totodile dived in. A few seconds after diving, Totodile surfaced with a flurry of bubbles, and took to swimming on it's back, singing to itself.

Misty laughed, before picking up the green float and a floating target, threw them into the water- surprising Totodile in the process as these multicoloured flying things went over his head- before she pulled her green tank top over her head, and threw it on the floor, followed by her long, midnight blue board shorts, revealing her slate grey bikini top and black hot pant shorts. She gracefully dived into the water, and surfaced a few metres ahead, before breaking the surface once again. After a few powerful strokes of her arms, she placed her feet on the white tiled floor of the pool. The water rose up to just below her shoulders, allowing free movement of her arms out of the water. She leant her head back, closed her eyes and smoothed her now dripping, dark ginger hair back with both her hands. As she looked back down, she saw Totodile treading water ahead of her, a patient look on his face. Misty took a deep breath, filling her lungs before exhaling slowly and calmly. The water had a very relaxing effect on Misty, her previously tense shoulders were now relaxed as she stood in the water, listening to the light slopping of the water, and the constant pattering of the rain above.

"Right, Totodile, to get you started off today, I want you to take a deep breath, and swim alongside me underwater for as long as possible okay? It's not too difficult, but as soon as you need air, come back up. Okay, on three…" Misty counted to three after explaining the task to Totodile, both took deep breaths, and ducked underwater to swim. Totodile's legs were paddling frantically as he swam; whereas Misty just had her body streamlined and was kicking her legs slowly, seemingly gliding along. After about 40 seconds, Totodile ran out of breath, and broke the surface once again, immediately taking a deep intake of breath to lower the oxygen deficit within his body. Misty came up shortly after, and took a few deep breaths to regain her normal breathing pattern. While Totodile was catching his breath, Misty took to floating on her back, staring at the rain-spattered roof. She sighed, and began thinking of the black haired boy that plagued her mind so much.

_'I wonder what he's doing now… whether he still remembers me…what are you thinking?! Of course he's forgotten you now Misty, you haven't spoken in a year!_' Misty scowled at her own thoughts, before her face softened, and her eyes started watering, tears filling them again.

_'Aw, come on Misty, get a hold of yourself!'_ she scolded herself, stopping her train of thought from going any further. _'Enough was enough'_ she thought ultimately as she stood back up. As she was doing so, a chime broke the peacefulness in the pool. Misty scowled; the noise had made her jump. However, she quickly opened her eyes when one of her sister's voices echoed through the room.

"Hey, Misty, like, where are you? We need you to come to the reception area, there's a phone-call from a Hoenn phone number for you!" Daisy, the blonde haired third of Misty's triplet sisters called, her ever cheerful voice sending a shiver down Misty's spine. She looked down at Totodile, still treading water, now with an anticipating look on his face, and sighed.

"Totodile, I'm really, _really _sorry, but I need to go and take this phone call okay? I'll have to put you away, so training's over I'm afraid," Misty said sympathetically. The Pokémon feigned a look of dismay briefly, before bearing it's perfect white teeth in a grin, and swam underwater to the pool's edge.

Misty collected the various floating training equipment pieces from the surface, and then used them as a buoy ahead of her to swim to where Totodile was just surfacing again. She placed the floats on the side of the pool end then lifted Totodile out onto the side also, before pulling herself out of the pool. Totodile shook the excess water from his tough skin as Misty picked up the equipment and walked back to the storeroom. On her way out, she picked up a white towel from the floor beside the storeroom door, and dried most of the water from her skin. She rubbed her hair to take most of the water too, and then when she reached her pile of clothes again, she took to putting her clothes back on to cover her damp body up. She picked Totodile's Pokéball up from the floor where she placed it.

"Okay then, ready to go back in?" Misty asked, but didn't wait for an answer as she aimed the centre of the ball at Totodile, and hit the button with her middle finger, the red beam of light shooting out and making contact with Totodile, immediately causing him to become a mere gathering of translucent red light, which returned to the now open Pokéball, snapping shut as soon as all the light had collected inside the ball. She held the button until the ball shrunk to the size of a ping-pong ball, before placing it in her pocket. As she was walking back to the white double doors, the PA system chimed once again. Daisy's voice was heard once again, but was shriller this time.

"Misty, like the person on the other end of this line said to hurry up already! Are you like, coming or what?" Misty growled as she put all her weight on her shoulder to open the door.

"I'm coming, I'm coming… don't be so impatient!" Misty said in exasperation, now jogging along the aquarium corridor leading from the poolroom to the reception, a beautiful show of many marine species in large, well-kept tanks all along the corridor. Once she reached the end of the corridor, she shoved open the whole glass door, and unintentionally stormed into the reception area, catching the attention of Daisy, who was sat behind the large glass desk trying to look busy.

"Like, no need to be so moody Misty, what's happened to you anyway, I heard you screaming and…you look like you've been out in the rain. Do you like, wanna catch a cold or something?" Misty looked at her sibling sceptically. She looked at the tight bright pink t-shirt she was wearing, along with the dark jeans and kitten heels, and then sighed, turned around and walked to the touch screen videophone mounted on the wall. The screen was split into a main window that was black with "Voice only" in the middle of it; and several multicoloured icons that if touched would do something. Misty pressed the blue "pick up call" button.

"Hello, this is Misty Waterflower, head gym leader of the Cerulean City Pokémon Gym talking. Whom am I speaking to?" She said in an official tone, unsure of the person on the other end.

"Mist… Misty, it's me. Accept the video call," The voice said, slightly nervous. The voice was that of a male. A popup appeared asking whether she wanted to accept a video call, and with a touch of the screen on the "accept" button, the black screen flickered for a second, before a moving colour image filled the screen. Misty looked at the screen for a second, before her jaw dropped open. It was _he._ What did _he _want? Misty quickly remembered he could see her also, but he had left her speechless.

"Misty…are you okay? You look a little bugged out, not to mention wet. I haven't seen or spoken to you in so long…" The boy said unsurely, a worried look coming onto his tanned face.

"Ash…why didn't you call me sooner? I've been waiting for so long, you haven't sent me anything, nothing in 8 months!" Misty said after a short pause, her voice was full of disappointment, and she wasn't looking the boy- Ash in the eye, or even his face. She was looking at anywhere on the screen but him, taking in his very plain surroundings, all that was seen were cream walls.

"It's been difficult Mist. Hoenn and Kanto don't allow general purpose communications between their countries anymore, I've had to wait until I got to Evergrande's Pokémon League HQ to be patched through on 'official league business'," Ash explained, before muttering the words "I'm sorry Misty, I really am. I've missed you like anything…" At this, Misty smiled.

"So, how's it been out there? I hope you've had more fun than me…" She finished gloomily.

"Hey, come on. I would love to run a gym thousands of people would, you don't know how lucky you are…"

"Yeah, sure. It's not all it's cracked up to be, believe me!"

"Anyway… Hoenn's great, it's a really nice change to Kanto and Johto, but… it's not been the same without you. I met this new girl, called May" Ash went on to tell Misty, at this, she groaned.

_'Brilliant, a new girl. Lovely'_ She thought cynically. 

"She's good, but not a touch on you. Brock's with us, but… it isn't the same without your constant reality checks, May's a rookie, and so she doesn't know anything about Pokémon. All she's learned is from me!" Ash laughed, bringing his arm behind his head to scratch his neck nervously. Misty couldn't help but smile, _'at least he's got a bit of a sense of humour now' _she thought to herself. She brought herself to look into Ash's deep brown eyes on the screen, Ash had been doing the same to her the whole time, but Misty immediately blushed and looked away.

"Right. I need to end this soon, so… the reason why I called. You wouldn't know this, but the Hoenn League Championship begins next week, and I'm entered into it… and I was wondering, do you want to come out here to catch up with us all?" Ash asked the question hesitantly; unsure of how Misty would react.

"I mean, you don't have to, but… I would really like it if you did, I can pay for you to get a flight out here tomorrow with my mum to catch up with me!" Ash explained, thinking money would be the problem. He watched Misty ponder on the thought for a few seconds, her eyes wandering, and every now and then making contact with his. Finally, she looked up, and smiled.

"Ash, I would _love _to come and meet you." Misty said, a shy grin creeping onto her face.

* * *

Okay, end of the first chapter. Please take the time to do a review, I haven't a clue when I'll be updating next, it all depends on how I feel and college work okay?  
Until then, peace out,  
_Misty's Double_


End file.
